


The Christmas Party

by vermicious_knid



Series: In no sense civilized [2]
Category: Gremlins (Movies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-31 20:31:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17856494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vermicious_knid/pseuds/vermicious_knid
Summary: Or how to keep calm when your boss is a tiny evil reptile, and his employees decide to kidnap someone on the night before christmas.





	The Christmas Party

Kaitlin was mildly surprised when she checked her calender and realized that she had been working for Mr. Brain for almost four months already.

 

As they say, time flies by when you are subjected to surprise attacks of projectile vomit, live chickens running down the hall, terrified postmen and all the ways kitchen appliances can be used as a weapon.

 

And now, christmas was soon approaching.

 

In honor of the holiday, she had dressed in her nicest business dress in bold red and matching stiletto heels.

 

At other places of work, christmastime was noticeable by a busy, chaotic environment – but since Mean, Green & Co was always like that, it was hard to tell if anyone was ”in spirit” of the holiday or not. The only sign of the holiday at the office currently was a poster for ”how the grinch stole christmas” in the lobby. Someone had drawn a crude heart around the grinch’s face along with a very dirty limerick, which was a little disconcerting.

 

From the moment Kaitlin stepped out of the elevator at the 26th floor, an ordinary person would have gawked at the sight and frantically tried to escape. But this was old hat to her by now.

 

The office itself was normal. Grey cubicles row after row, a large lunch room and a rec room connected to it. It was the employees in said cubicles that had the effect of making most people...unnerved to say the least.

 

When Kaitlin had, after some trepidation, asked Mr. Brain what they would like to be called, he had chuckled and said:

 

”Well, wouldn’t we all wish to be called model citizens? ”

 

Which had not answered her question at all.

 

”No sir, I mean, that is...you’re a lizard. You’re all lizards... Correct?”

 

He had poured himself a tumblr of scotch, then emptied the contents in a nearby potted succulent.

 

”By heart and by nature. Clinical term is of course more related to the amphibian family, but you may think of us as Gremlins. ”

 

* * *

 

There was always a sort of hazy smoke lingering above the cubicles. Not from smoking mind you, but from recently put out fires. The fire alarms had been disarmed the first week she’d started, since they went off at a drop of a hat.

 

Kaitlin waved at a few gremlins currently plucking away at the computers. One of them was on fire. Once, this might have concerned her.

 

”hey guys, working hard?” she called out cheerfully. A cacophony of cries like that of angry cats and broken toys answered her, and she laughed. Someone threw a full cup of coffee into the air, as well as a handful of popcorn and a tiny stuffed valentines day bear. She nodded to them in general like she knew exactly what this meant.

 

”Yeah, I hear ya.”

 

Just as she exited the room, she passed by a busy looking gremlin dressed in a tiny fireman’s costume. It shuffled along quickly like a penguin, dragging a fire extinguisher behind him.

 

She heard the extinguisher go off, followed by several disappointed caveman grunts and yowls.

 

* * *

 

On her way to her desk, she was held at gunpoint twice.

 

She made a quick job of it by taking out her own weapon – a tiny pink colt 45, a birthday present from Mr. Brain himself.

 

Since Gremlins multiplied as easily as rabbits, it was no big sorrow if one or two went missing now and then.

 

Kaitlin reported to her boss an hour into her shift, as per usual. His office was the only one that did not smell rank, and looked as neat and clean as if it had belonged to the president himself.

 

”Good morning, sir.” she said by greeting as she shut his door behind her.

 

Brain swiveled around in his chair, which was five times too big for him. None of the Gremlins were very tall, and only reached up to her knees in height at the most. He smiled brightly at her, needle-sharp teeth on display.

 

”Morning to you, my dear! Was traffic a nightmare?” he asked politely, an eager gleam in his eyes. She knew he loved hearing about car accidents. She shrugged at his question.

 

”Not any more than usual. Tea?”

 

”With my usual breakfast sandwich, if you please.” Brain said, but noticed how his ears flopped in disappointment. She made a note of circling gruesome incidents in todays paper for him.

 

In the staff kitchen, she put together his food on a tray. The sandwich consisted of white rye bread, dipped in tabasco sauce with either a dead rat or a raw egg inside. He wasn’t all too picky like that.

 

When she brought it in, she decided to ask about the staff holiday party.

 

It was something that he had been putting off for months now, and the only party he seemed reluctant to partake or host at all.

 

”Do you guys have something against christmas or something?” she asked as he was about to take a bite of his disgusting sandwich. He stopped and put it down, his eyes forming to slits. A slim, green hand creeped up over the corner of his desk, and promptly without looking Brain smacked the hand with a fly-swatter.

 

Someone whimpered quietly in the corner, before they scampered away.

 

”Ah, something to that effect. It it a complicated thing you see. We were all subjected to _genocide_ at christmas five years ago.”

 

She had not expected that as a reason. She sat down in the grey visitor's chair and stared at him.

 

”Wait, what??”

 

Brain just shrugged, flipping the sandwich open, holding up the dead rat and licking his lips.

 

”if you can find him, ask Stripe to tell you the whole sordid tale. Most of them have forgotten about it now, but christmas always makes them so antsy. Perhaps I should hire a crisis counceler...”

 

She coughed politely at that.

 

”Sir, I hate to remind you but the last thing we need this christmas is another lawsuit on our hands. Remember what happened to that poor birthday clown...”

 

Mr. Brain tapped a few claws on his desk thoughtfully, and Kaitlin tried not to think about how she had helped said clown re-attach three out of five fingers on his left hand.

 

”Fine, then what do you suggest?”

 

”That we have a proper christmas party, a do-over if you will. ”

 

Brain glared at her with sinister intent. Then he chewed on his cigar thoughtfully, before swallowing it whole in one bite. She thought he really ought to cut down on that.

* * *

 

She really ought to have suspected that something was being planned without her supervision. But the gremlins were usually too scatterbrained to plan anything other than a cricket match in the rec room or the occasional drag show down the hallway.

 

But the weeks leading up to the 25th, they had been a sneaky lot. Scattering like cockroaches whenever she approached, whispering instead of the usual screaming. Unnerving to say the least.

 

Even Brain seemed unusually preoccupied and deliriously serene. If it weren’t for his little impromptu speech he made on the day before christmas, she wouldn’t have suspected a thing was amiss.

 

They had a quite successful christmas party on the 24th – even though the decorations were chewed on, exposed electric wires dangling from the ceiling and the tree slightly mauled and molested. Everyone had gathered in their largest meeting room, where there was an abundance of food laid out on the table, along with enough alcohol to subdue an elephant.

 

Some of the gremlins exchanged gifts – others preferred exchanging err, other things that were liquid and foul smelling. Kaitlin herself had given her boss a self-help book.

 

”Ah, Hobbies for pleasure and profit! You shouldn’t have.” he exclaimed as he unwrapped it – and he wasn’t even sarcastic about it.

 

”I thought it might give you some good eh, business ideas.” she said, but what she really meant was  _please find another hobby that doesn’t involve organized crime or dismemberment._

 

Brain himself ( a little drunk, she suspected) had gotten up on his chair and clinked his claws to his glass of champagne to get everyone’s attention.

 

”I’d like you congratulate you all on another fruitful year of business. Let’s give a cheer – hurrah, hurrah.”

 

The gremlins cheered, some threw their drinks in the air and others paid no attention. Brain continued speaking to his subjects, a special twinkle in his eyes that at the time had seemed merely festive.

 

”And as so many of you know, tomorrow comes to pass a very heavy holiday season. But after tomorrow, I think we’ll all feel like we’ve been given our right due. Closure, if you will. We will reach out a hand to a friend from our past, and hope he can help resolve this issue in due course.”

 

It wasn’t until several hours later, when Kaitlin had gotten home to her own apartment that she started thinking about the speech, and its odd implications. Friend? The gremlins didn’t have any friends except for themselves.

 

And the only person that she could think of that had anything to do with the gremlins was-

 

Oh dear.

* * *

After getting dressed in a hurry and hailing down a cab, she came back to the office to find Billy Peltzer stapled to the wall in the hallway (next to the poster). A santa hat had been perched on his head, and someone had drawn red lipstick over his mouth. There was also a small but very real campfire at his feet, slowly starting to consume his pants. There was a sea of gremlins gathered around him – some were even roasting marshmallows over the fire.

 

She had known of Mr. Peltzers involvement, but not to what extent. Brain had only mentioned that he played a part in making them ”an endangered species”. The scene before her now however answered a lot of questions.

 

She had to get rid of quite a few of them using her pink gun, and it was lucky that they had so many extra fire hydrants around the office for occasions exactly like this one. Billy himself looked frightened but otherwise okay – his pants however…

 

”Who are you?” he asked her suddenly, looking quite perplexed. _Well, who could blame him?_

 

”I’m the secretary.” she said, shrugging. Maybe she shouldn’t have said it so casually. Billy looked like he was going to have a stroke.

 

”You work for these things?!”

 

”Unfortunately, yes. Don’t worry, I’m going to speak to their boss about this.”

 

Billy just stared at her like she was speaking in an alien language, and not quite sure on how to proceed.

 

She lowered the gun and sighed.

 

”If you ask nicely, I’ll make you a vodka martini.”

 

”Uh, do you have anything stronger?”

 

”I’m sure we’ll be able to find something along those lines. And pants.”


End file.
